Data

News Archives

science

The Spanish flu swept across the campus of the San Jose Normal School, now known as San Jose State University, in October 1918. Then, like now, the school took steps to protect the campus community. Students, faculty, and staff volunteered their time and resources to help the campus and the San Jose region weather the pandemic.

According to the June 1919 LaTorre yearbook, the school closed on October 11, reopened a month later, then closed again December 3 for another month. Students were charged with making their own reusable cloth masks and were required to wear them when classes resumed.

The Normal Hospital

Students at the San Jose Normal School wore masks during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Source: 1918 La Torre yearbook, courtesy of SJSU Special Collections and Archives.

Hospitals in San Jose were so overcrowded at the time that the Intermediate Building on campus was converted into The Normal Hospital and a house on 12th Street was rented and made into a convalescent ward. Some 75 volunteer nurses worked at both makeshift hospitals. The Household Arts Department made meals for the patients. Students and faculty volunteered to care for patients; they donated cots, bedding, clothing, food, and flowers.

“One remarkable feature of the Normal School’s response was how its student body, mainly women, volunteered to serve as untrained nurses, literally putting their lives on the line to serve their community,” said History Professor and Director of the Burdick Military History Project Jonathan Roth.

According to the yearbook, the response and outpouring from the campus and the local community were wonderful. Here’s an excerpt: “And we are proud to know that in a time of great testing, our faculty and students proved themselves loyal and true in the highest sense.”

One hundred and two years later, the San Jose State community is once again being tested by another pandemic— Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Once again, the SJSU community is stepping up, rallying resources to fight the disease.

Similar to the 1918 flu outbreak, campus leaders have taken measures to protect students, faculty and staff. In an effort to promote social distancing and prevent the spread of COVID-19 on campus, SJSU administrators moved classes online.

Two SJSU alumni, working on the cutting edge of biotechnology, have helped their company, Cepheid, develop the first rapid COVID-19 test that can be administered at hospitals and urgent care centers and deliver test results within 45 minutes.

As local hospitals and emergency rooms run out of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies, SJSU’s College of Science stepped in to help.

“A group of biology and College of Science staff and faculty contacted me about our stock of gloves and masks, which normally would have been used in spring 2020 biology labs that are no longer meeting,” said College of Science Dean Michael Kaufman. “We quickly inventoried the materials and contacted Valley Medical Foundation. In the end we were able to contribute 56 cases of gloves, plus a smaller supply of N95 and surgical masks. We know that many SJSU graduates are part of the healthcare teams there, so it was especially meaningful to be able to contribute this personal protective equipment to Valley Medical.”

The university also donated hydrogen peroxide and isopropyl to a local company to make hand sanitizer, said SJSU Vice President of Administration of Finance Charlie Faas.

Faculty in the industrial design department are using 3-D printers to make test kit swabs and badly needed ventilator parts for front line medical staff.

Although the times and the resources are different, students, faculty and staff at the Normal School, and now San Jose State, are uniting, supporting each other, proving themselves loyal and true to help overcome the global pandemics of 1918 and 2020.

Two San Jose State University alumni are part of the team that developed the first rapid COVID-19 test that delivers results in 45 minutes.

David Persing, ’79 Biochemistry, is one of two SJSU alumni working at Cepheid to develop a COVID-19 diagnostic test. Photo: David Schmitz.

Dr. David Persing,‘79, Biochemistry, and Rich Nolasco, ‘08, Mechanical Engineering, work for Sunnyvale-based Cepheid. The molecular diagnostic testing company announced on March 21 that it has received emergency authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its SAR-CoV-2 Xpert Xpress test. It is the first rapid COVID-19 test that can be administered at point-of-contact locations, such as hospitals, emergency rooms and urgent care centers, and delivers rapid results.

Persing is the executive vice president, chief medical and technology officer for Cepheid. He explains in this video how the COVID-19 rapid test works and why it’s so important.

Persing graduated from SJSU with a degree in biochemistry and then earned an MD-PhD in genetics. He founded the Mayo Clinic’s Molecular Microbiology Laboratory. Eventually, he left academia to focus on cancer and infectious diseases in the biotech industry. In an interview with Washington Square Magazine in 2019, Persing said “It was gratifying to treat one patient at a time, but I ultimately decided I needed to amplify the impact of my research and touch the lives of many people simultaneously.”

Richard Nolasco, ’08 Mechanical Engineering, is a member of a team at Cepheid working on a COVID-19 diagnostic test. Photo: Courtesy of Rich Nolasco.

SJSU alumnus Rich Nolasco graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and works as a failure investigation engineer at Cepheid.

“When I joined the Cepheid team in late 2015, I knew that the company and my work directly affected lives around the world in a positive way,” said Nolasco. “When I found out that Cepheid was coming up with a test to detect the virus, I knew it would make a huge and positive impact.”

Cepheid expects to begin rolling out the COVID-19 rapid test at the end of March.

SAN JOSE, CA – San Jose State University received final approval today from the California State University Board of Trustees for plans to build an eight-story, 161,200-square-foot, $181 million Interdisciplinary Science Building.

“On behalf of San Jose State University, I would like to thank the California State University Board of Trustees for approving our Interdisciplinary Science Building and supporting our efforts to bring our students a new cutting-edge academic research and teaching building befitting SJSU’s location in the heart of Silicon Valley,” President Mary A. Papazian said.

The structure will be located in the southwest quadrant of campus, near Duncan Hall, one of two existing science buildings. The current Science Building was completed in 1957 and Duncan Hall in 1967, making the ISB the first new science building in more than a half century.

Construction is slated to begin in 2019, and anticipated to be completed in 2021. The collaborative design/build contractor is McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. The project architect is FLAD Architects

Supporting collaboration and partnerships

The project primarily will serve San Jose State’s College of Science, which currently enrolls more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students in programs for biology, chemistry, computer science, geology, mathematics and statistics, meteorology and climate science, physics and astronomy, and science education. The college also administers the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

The eight-story, 161,200-square-foot structure will contain chemistry and biology labs and more.

“San Jose State University’s new Interdisciplinary Science Building will provide essential teaching, research and collaboration space for our STEM students, extending learning beyond the classroom. In addition, the building will enhance our growing partnerships with industry leaders in Silicon Valley,” Dean Michael Kaufman said.

Features will including the following:
Biology and chemistry teaching and research labs, collaboration space, 41 faculty offices, and administrative and support areas.

A mentoring hub on each floor where students will work on interdisciplinary projects, connect with faculty, and meet with industry partners.

A collaborative core in hallways between classrooms and research labs that will allow student and faculty researchers to brainstorm and plan their projects.

A high-performance computing suite for astronomers, physicists, social scientists, health professionals and more, where students and faculty from different disciplines can share their work and improve their research techniques.

Designed to meet or exceed environmental standards

“San Jose State University’s Interdisciplinary Science Building will be forward-looking—to the future of education and of Silicon Valley,” Vice President for Administration and Finance Charlie Faas said. “The proposed approach enables the campus to best use its limited land base to increase campus density to accommodate the academic program.”

This project will be designed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver and target LEED Gold in order to meet the sustainability objectives of the campus by using an efficient building envelope that will reduce heating and cooling demand.

Other sustainable design features will include efficient LED lighting systems, a cool roof, and the use of recycled water in restrooms and for landscape irrigation.

About San Jose State University

The founding campus of the 23-campus California State University system, San Jose State provides a comprehensive university education, granting bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in 250 areas of study – offered through its eight colleges.

With more than 35,000 students and nearly 4,370 employees, San Jose State University continues to be an essential partner in the economic, cultural and social development of Silicon Valley and the state, annually contributing 10,000 graduates to the workforce.

The university is immensely proud of the accomplishments of its more than 260,000 alumni, 60 percent of whom live and work in the Bay Area.

SAN JOSE, CA — San Jose State University students will travel to Oregon to be among the first researchers in the nation to measure atmospheric conditions during the total solar eclipse Aug. 21.

NBC Bay Area catches a demo.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our meteorology students to investigate how the atmosphere responds during a brief disruption in the sun’s energy. They will be part of the most well-documented and most studied total solar eclipse so far,” said Arthur Eiserloh, lecturer in the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science.

The SJSU group will team up with students from Oregon Coast Community College in Newport, Ore. They will release eight radiosonde devices. Each device will be carried by a balloon to various levels of the atmosphere and will transmit measurements by radio. The team will study air temperature, air pressure, moisture and winds.

Eiserloh and students, including Arianna Jordan (second from the right) study the radiosonde instrument.

“When I first heard about this project, it seemed like a really good opportunity. Projects like this motivate people in STEM majors,” said Arianna Jordan, ’18 Meteorology and Climate Science. “It’s going to be a really amazing experience and I’m excited to share what we find with the world.”

The center is a NASA Minority University Research and Education Project, which seeks to support underrepresented minorities in atmospheric-related disciplines, including meteorology, climate, physics, hydrology, public health, and engineering, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Eiserloh and students practice using instruments that will measure the meteorological impact of the eclipse.

About San Jose State University

The founding campus of the 23-campus California State University system, San José State provides a comprehensive university education, granting bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in 250 areas of study – offered through its eight colleges.

With more than 35,000 students and nearly 4,370 employees, San José State University continues to be an essential partner in the economic, cultural and social development of Silicon Valley and the state, annually contributing 10,000 graduates to the workforce.

The university is immensely proud of the accomplishments of its more than 260,000 alumni, 60 percent of whom live and work in the Bay Area.

“A group of meteorologists from San Jose State University are collecting data from the huge wildfire burning near Yosemite in an effort to understand how such conflagrations create their own weather. Maria Medina reports.”

When Elizabeth López learned that her uncle Jesse Musquez, ’73 Math, had completed his degree but never walked in Commencement, she asked why. As an undergraduate graduation evaluator at San Jose State’s Office of the Registrar, she knew how important it is for college students to celebrate their graduation.

“Everyone should have the opportunity to participate in graduation,” López said. “It’s a celebration of a big achievement, and I thought he would enjoy being a part of it.”

Back in 1973, Musquez was a young father of two, with a third on the way. As a Vietnam veteran, Musquez had already overcome significant obstacles in pursuing his education. When he was a young child, his family had worked for the automotive industry in Michigan before moving out west to pick apricots, cotton and grapes in the Valley of Heart’s Delight.

The Musquez family in the 1970s. From left to right, Christopher Daniel, Maria, Jesse, Marcos and Anna (all photos courtesy of the Musquez family).

Determined to be the first in his family to complete a college degree, Musquez put himself through school on the G.I. Bill and worked full-time to support his wife and children. Just as he was completing the final requirements for graduation, his sister-in-law passed away unexpectedly, leaving three small children. Instead of donning his cap and gown, Musquez, along with his wife and his in-laws, focused on providing care for their family—a consistent theme throughout his life.

When she heard this story, López felt moved to do something. She investigated what it would take to bring her uncle to CEFCU Stadium on May 27 in cap and gown.

Achieving the American Dream

“My father is a fantastic example of someone who came from very simple means and has accomplished so much. He is an example of the American dream,” said Musquez’s daughter Anna Martorana, ’99 Molecular Biology.

Musquez, age 73, had originally pursued math as a pathway to coding, though at the time that he graduated, there weren’t any jobs in the field. Instead he chose a career in electronics, working for several years for Fairchild Semiconductor before entering international sales.

The Musquez family today.

“For being someone who picked cotton and worked in the fields to graduating from San Jose State, it’s been a long journey,” Musquez said.

Throughout his successful career, the focus has always been on family. It’s no surprise that he’ll be surrounded by 15 family members on the big day, many of them flying in from out of town.

Family man

Jesse Musquez in cap and gown.

“My dad is so much about everyone else in the family,” said Martorana, who attended San Jose State as a young parent herself and now works for Novartis Pharmaceuticals. “He is the foundation of the family but he is often in the background. We’re thrilled to get this opportunity to recognize him and what he’s accomplished.”

When he went to pick up his cap and gown, surrounded by graduates of the Class of 2017, he says the excitement was palpable.

“It’s going to be fun to put on a gown and sit there with all these young people,” he said. “When I went to get my gown, you could feel the energy of all the students. You can feel their hard work and you can sense that their families have done the work to get them where they’re at. I’m happy to do this.”

Thirty San Jose State undergraduate and graduate computer science majors spent a recent Saturday hunched over hardware chips and sensors as part of a two-week Internet of Things Workshop that kicked off on March 19.

The workshop, born from collaboration between the SJSU Department of Computer Science and Aeris, a Santa Clara-based cellular network operator, offers students not only an introduction to various scripting languages but also the opportunity to create their own applications.

“I am thinking about a smart parking garage, so you have an app that says ‘this car is leaving this spot right now,’ then you can direct the people looking for spots to that spot,” said Dennis Hsu, ’16 MS Computer Science.

But even a simple idea requires sophisticated tech tools and collaborating with experts. This is where Aeris comes in.

“One of the original goals of this was a basic hackathon but at a much higher level, so most of the work is going to be with JavaScript, Python, the Tessel platform and the types of sensors that feed data into the Internet of Things,” said Harry Plant, vice president of social sector at Aeris. “More importantly, I would like [students] to take away a sense of working at a Silicon Valley company.”

The thirty students are divided into ten groups of three, where they are tasked to work collaboratively to build an application over the course of two weeks to solve a real world problem or an application that has commercial value.

Groups were armed with a box of components to kick-start their product development stage, which included AeroCloud credentials to access the company’s Cloud system, a Tessel board hardware platform, connecting cable, climate or RFID (radio-frequency identification) modules, and Python and JavaScript software for coding.

“Our basic objective is to help students learn new languages so they can use them for the mainstream jobs,” Madiraju said.

Hsu, who envisioned the parking garage app, said prior to attending the workshop kick-off, the idea of the Internet of Things was an abstract concept as it relates to the broader connected world.

“I like that we got hands-on experience with the devices and actually doing the programming with professionals who give us their feedback and their ideas,” Hsu said.

Paired with Vihneshwari Chandrasekaran, ’17 MS Computer Science, Hsu said most of their early conceptual application ideas were born from various examples provided in short information sessions proctored by Aeris software engineers.

Aeris engineers suggested exploring applications that improve society in some capacity like water filter sensors for water crises, refrigerator sensors to prevent food spoiling and mobile payment applications.

Over the next two weeks, participants will have the opportunity to visit Aeris offices to attend “office hour” sessions, where they can de-bug ideas and gain feedback from Aeris engineers on how to improve their applications.

Students will present their final applications to Aeris on April 2, in a judging process that takes into consideration originality of the idea, technical achievement and execution, and real world value or commercial viability.

“There are two end goals,” Plant said. In addition to completing an app, the firm wants to “bring more students into Silicon Valley workplace and to expose them to the Internet of Things, and have them think from a design perspective,”

When holographic reality tech company LEIA Inc. invited 16 computer science students to participate in an automotive hackathon last December, the startup looked forward to the results.

The students did not disappoint, delivering projects utilizing the company’s 3D technology in various capacities including car displays, speedometers, navigation and automation.

But the hackathon was extra meaningful for one Spartan: Daniel Geisler, ’17 Computer Science, is now a member of the company’s software development team.

Photo: Neal Waters, ’07 Geography, ’16 MS Mass Communications

“We saw that Daniel was very quick at figuring stuff out and working with the other students and teams, and he had a good technical background,” said LEIA Inc. Project Lead Loren Beyerstein. “We originally were hoping to hire several interns and it turned out that we decided that it was best to start out with one, and we’re hoping that we can bring in more in the future.”

Geisler joined the team in February as an intern, where he’s been working on improving the company’s 3GS technology, a 3D technology that runs in a user’s web browser, so its holographic technology can work smoothly on any platform including Mac, Windows or Android.

The company’s name reflects a scene from Star Wars IV when Luke finds an S.O.S. message from Leia. R2D2 displays the message in 3D. In 1977, this was science fiction. Today, it’s becoming reality.

“I’m trying to describe it more elegantly than just ‘awesome,’ but it is awesome,” Geisler said. “It’s really brand-new technology that is not out in the wild yet, so it’s really good to get first-hand experience before it’s out.”

Although Geisler has only been working with the company for a little over a month, Armand Niederberger, director of data science and algorithms at LEIA Inc., said his contributions are immeasurable.

“He helped build the LEIA Core Library when he first started,” Niederberger said. “In the beginning especially and still now, [he’s] very crucial to helping us get our code clean and to the next level, and to making sure it works with the latest software out there.”

Part of Geisler’s role entails translating the company’s code so it can be utilized on any platform on any computing environment, which can be a tedious task.

Geisler spends eight hours a day fishing through code and ensuring that LEIA Inc.’s animation demos run smoothly.

More recently, Geisler has utilized his prior videogame development experience in fine-tuning LEIA Inc.’s mesh animation, which is technology that is intended to mirror a human’s facial expression and duplicate it on a 3D-simulated character, or avatar.

“I literally just sit there tweaking some code and looking at it to see if it’s working right [by making facial expressions],” Geisler said.

Photo: Neal Waters, ’07 Geography, ’16 MS Mass Communications

The technology, which for now offers two avatar choices of either a monkey or a pixie-like character, is intended to one day provide users the opportunity to 3D holographic chat with other users.

“So you’ll be looking at someone else’s avatar, and they’re looking at your avatar, and you’re seeing their real-time face as the monkey, and you’ll be seeing theirs as whatever avatar they want,” Geisler said.

Debra Caires, Geisler’s computer science lecturer, said she is thrilled that her student has benefited from the opportunity to work with a Silicon Valley startup company in SJSU’s backyard and have a hand in developing emerging technology.

“[LEIA Inc.] didn’t view Daniel as merely a student. LEIA presented in the classroom during one of our Wednesday night tech talk events and was already looking at our students as professionals and individuals who have intellectual value,” Caires said. “These collaborations between students and startups [are] phenomenal opportunities.”

Geisler, who sometimes even dreams of finding solutions to 3D technology in his sleep, said his experience is beyond what can be taught in the classroom.

“It’s cool just to see a developer’s environment, like how people in the industry work, and to work with professional code that other developers are going to be using,” Geisler said. “I love to program, so [this is] forcing me to do what I love.”

By Jan Null, Lecturer of Meteorology and Climate Science and Certified Consulting Meteorologist

This week will see the eyes of the world focused on the San Francisco Bay Area for Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7, 2016, and the days preceding. Game day is still at the far end of the meteorological forecast model’s capabilities, and consequently, it is still a tossup as to whether it will actually rain in Santa Clara on that day. There is even a lesser chance of rain during the four-hour period of play.

The general trend for the entire week of activities preceding the Super Bowl is both good news and bad news. The good news is that only a couple weak weather systems will move through the region during that time, but the bad news is that most Californians would rather see more rain toward the mitigation of the drought.

Looking at the past 49 years during the week preceding the Super Bowl, it has rained on average two days, with an average rainfall amount of 0.81 inches at the Mineta-San Jose International Airport, just three miles away from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. That rain occurred on 37 of the 49 weeks, or 76 percent of the time. It is also interesting to note that the two wettest Super Bowl weeks were during the strong El Nino events of 1997-98 (6.76 inches) and 1972-73 (2.23 inches).

Over the past 49 February 7ths it has rained 41 percent of the time on game day, but probably on the order of 15 percent of the time during the late afternoon.

The bottom line looks like any precipitation will be more of nuisance and not a deluge.

Why philosophy and science? Stemwedel holds doctoral degrees in philosophy and physical chemistry. Her blog “will focus on what’s involved with doing good science, and what ethics has to do with it.”

An experienced blogger, she’s found her online work enriches her academic life. Faculty members “sometimes have boundary issues,” she said.

“Our interests often lead us to explore disciplines other than the ones we’re trained in, our research spills over into our teaching, and both spill into our interactions with the world beyond the campus. Blogging is just another place where the boundaries keep moving for me.”

Here’s more on her life in the blogosphere.

Q. How does it feel to be selected?
A. I’m very excited to be one of the bloggers selected to blog for the new Scientific American Blog network, especially given the other talented writers there and the multitude of engaging perspectives they take in exploring science and places science intersects with our everyday lives. The network seems like a perfect embodiment of what we often describe as “life-long learning,” capturing especially the element of curiosity that propels us to keep learning and making connections.

Q. How did you get started?
A. My academic life at San José State is directly responsible for my entry into the blogosphere: In February 2005, when discussions in my “Ethics in Science” course (Phil 133) just would not fit into the confines of two 75-minute lectures a week, I created a blog to let those conversations continue. The blog was also a place to link and analyze news stories about scientists behaving badly, and soon, quite unexpectedly, I had readers (and commenters) who weren’t enrolled in my classes — readers who included scientists, philosophers, and all manner of interested non-experts from all over the world. I maintained that blog (“Adventures in Ethics and Science”) at ScienceBlogs.com from January 2006 to August 2010. Currently, “Adventures in Ethics and Science” is part of the Scientopia blog community.

Q. Tell us about “Doing Good Science.”
A. At Scientific American, I’ve launched a brand new blog called “Doing Good Science” which will focus on what’s involved with doing good science, and what ethics has to do with it. This means there will be posts exploring the strategies for scientific knowledge-building, the ways a scientific community whose members can play well with each other is essential to such knowledge-building, and the obligations scientific communities have to the larger society (and vice versa). The idea here will be to tease out how being ethical is not an extra something added to the scientist’s plate, but rather an integral part of the job of doing science in the first place.

Q. Why is a philosopher blogging on science?
A. I come at these questions the way I do in part due to my peculiar academic trajectory (I earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry before I realized that I really wanted to be a philosopher of science when I grew up, then going back to get a Ph.D in philosophy). As a philosopher, I’m at home exploring different accounts of what’s required to build knowledge about the world, or what’s involved in being ethical. As a non-practicing chemist, I still have vivid memories of what it was like to be a junior member of the tribe of science trying to learn what I needed to in order to be a grown-up scientist. Having a feel for how scientific communities function, and for what kinds of pressures their members encounter in different pieces of their careers, helps me keep my philosophical focus on understanding how actual scientists (not some abstract idealization of science) get the job done — and, when they run into problems, what kind of philosophical insights could help them deal with those problems.

Q. Do you receive much feedback?
A. Having readers who are living in the scientific world I’m describing keeps me honest; if my analysis seems wrong or my advice seems useless, they won’t hesitate to tell me! Meanwhile, having readers who are neither scientists nor philosophers pushes me to be really clear in my writing, to explain things in everyday language rather than discipline-bound jargon. SJSU faculty sometimes have boundary issues — our interests often lead us to explore disciplines other than the ones we’re trained in, our research spills over into our teaching, and both spill into our interactions with the world beyond the campus. Blogging is just another place where the boundaries keep moving for me.

Summary: See the latest in student research at the 7th Annual College of Science Student Research Day. Approximately 122 SJSU students working with College of Science faculty on original scientific research will present their results on a fascinating array of projects.

A San Jose State faculty-student team is aiming to reduce annual carbon emissions by 1 million pounds using nothing more than a green sword.

Through a campus collaboration, scientists, artists and educators have created the Green Ninja, a climate-action superhero.

The Green Ninja is an educational project designed to help students understand the complexities of climate change and act on solutions that produce real and measurable change.

A series of live action and animated films highlight the adventures of the Green Ninja navigating some of the more challenging areas in climate science.

Although the project is based on firm science led by the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, the effort is being brought to life by faculty and students from the film and animation/illustration departments.

When scientists and filmmakers work together, interesting things happen as seen in their first series of webisodes available at the Green Ninja website.

Educational materials are currently being developed to help K-12 teachers integrate Green Ninja climate science topics into standards-based math and science education.

In addition, a series of web, phone and Facebook tools is being developed to facilitate informal student education.

One of these tools allows students to track their home energy consumption, and using Green Ninja methods, reduce their energy use and carbon emissions.

Impressive Group of Collaborators

The Department of Meteorology and Climate Science has brought together an impressive group of collaborators for this project.

From the Department of TV, Radio, Film and Theatre come Babak Sarrafan, Barnaby Dallas and Nick Martinez, who are faculty members and directors at Spartan Films.

Babak Sarrafan created the Green Ninja character and, together with his RTVF 130 students, completed “The Green Ninja: Episode 1.”

David Chai, a professor of animation/illustration, is leading a number of student teams on various Green Ninja animation films.

Ellen Metzger, geology professor and director of science education, is helping to develop education materials so that K-12 teachers can use the Green Ninja in their classrooms.

Numerous students are working on aspects of the project including animation development by Marty Cooper, Michael Fong, Michelle Ikemoto, Joelle Murray and Aden Scott.

Software development students include Jay Patel, Srivatsan Srinivasan Vasishta, and Rachana Shaw.

Environmental Studies student Lina Prada works as a research analyst and web content developer.

Cordero is an associate professor of meteorology and climate science.#

What’s the best thing about SJSU’s very first ZEM (that’s zero-emissions) house?

“We built it,” said mechanical engineering major Eden Specht.

“We” means 25 students from five departments, making this one of San Jose State’s most ambitious interdisciplinary senior projects ever.

Specht placed the emphasis on the “we” because students built the whole thing from the ground up: drawing up plans, picking out materials, and hammering the whole thing together.

You can check out their pride and joy — and perhaps learn something new about sustainability — at the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering Open House 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 16. Featuring department presentations, lab demonstrations and the like, the engineering event is timed to coincide with Admitted Spartan Day.

The house is definitely a site to behold, its bright blue angled walls rising from the engineering courtyard (which, by the way, is chock full of all sorts of inventions). With just one room, the house was built more for learning than living, though all the techniques are very much applicable to real homes.

For instance, that power blue material peeking out from unfinished interior? That’s insulation made from recycled denim jeans. And the angled, south-facing front wall? That’s a passive solar element that keeps the house cool during the summer and warm during the winter given seasonal changes in the sun’s path.

The house is also equipped with a heat pump, solar panels and LED lighting with motion detectors, though there’s not much need for daytime lighting. Sunlight fills the interior without heating it up thanks to a bank of small, north-facing windows along the peak of the A-frame roof.

Working together, students from all these departments drafted plans, built a model, sought support from corporations and foundations, and then began construction March 1. Even a couple civil engineering students pitched in, adding trusses to ensure the 100-square-foot structure is earthquake-safe.

Real World Experience

Though the house is considered coursework, it’s clear that for students like Specht, it’s about far more than getting a good grade. A new father who comes to campus carrying his baby girl, he pours time into the effort, motivated by the opportunity to do hands-on work on a well funded endeavor supported by many faculty members.

“This is my favorite part of being an engineering student,” he said.

For mechanical engineering major Kendrick Lau, working with students with all kinds of expertise, from finance to fire safety, is invaluable.

“We get to see what it’s like in the real world before we hit the real world,” he said.

To Professor Rhee, the house sends a very clear message about the contributions technology can make to sustainability.

Dubbed by its creators as the “the varsity sport for the mind,” the FIRST Robotics Competition fuses the excitement of a sporting event with science and technology. It gives students the chance to compete against peers internationally while gaining real-world engineering experience. The Event Center will host the Silicon Valley regional competition, where teams from San Jose and surrounding communities such as Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View and Saratoga will represent the South Bay. The competition will give the budding engineers a small taste of college life when they visit the SJSU campus.The best will move on to the state level, then compete for their shot to take center stage at the international championships in April.

“It’s not just about robots,” said FIRST founder Dean Kamen, the entrepreneur known for inventing the Segway scooter. “It’s about building self confidence, respect and important relationships with people who invent new technologies to make a better future.”

Students are challenged to form teams of 15 to 25 peers, think up a theme and work for six weeks to build and program robots that will perform competitive tasks. Students are rewarded points for teamwork, professionalism and the ability to overcome challenges, but the goals of building lasting partnerships and industry connections are emphasized over high scores.

“It’s like life. You never have enough information. You never have enough time. There are always competing things and you must have a strategy. We’ve created a microcosm of the real engineering experience,” said FIRST National Advisor Woodie Flowers.

Now in its 20th year, the FIRST Robotics Competition involves nearly 52,000 students from nine countries including the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel and Germany. Sponsors include Boeing, NASA, JC Penny, General Motors and Rockwell Automation. More than $14 million in scholarships from about 140 sponsors will be offered as part of the event.

The San Jose State University Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) Schools Program will host its annual MESA Day Preliminary Competitions from from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 5 at SJSU. Students from nearby school districts will participate in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions designed to help them apply their academic skills to hands-on and real world experiences.

Associate Professor of Meteorology and Climate Science Eugene Cordero has been named a Google Science Communication Fellow.

Google announced the selection of its 21 fellows last week. The fellows all have some history of outreach working with the general public in the climate science field, and were chosen based on their ability to communicate their expertise in ways that the general public can understand. Other considerations included technical and social media skills, and the use of Google products.

“We will together explore technology and ways of interacting with people to come up with new ways to communicate climate science to a broader community,” said Cordero.

Google took interest in Cordero because of his public-education and outreach experience with climate change. In addition to eight years at San Jose State, Cordero spent five years at an Australian research university studying ozone depletion, and has given over 100 public talks on a book he co-authored. “Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite out of Global Warming” focuses on food choices and the connection they have with the environment. Cordero has also created a climate-action superhero, the Green Ninja, to educate online audiences about climate science.

A three-day workshop at Google, designed to open up scientific dialogue, is set for June. After the workshop, the Google Science Communication Fellows will be given the opportunity to apply for grants to continue with their projects. The most influential projects will win a Lindblad Expeditions & National Geographic trip to the Arctic, representing the voyage as a science communicator.

“I look forward to interacting with people and making this information mainstream,” says Cordero.

The Department of Meteorology and Climate Science added climate science as a new major last fall. The new concentration focuses on weather climate and using modules to see what affect humans are having on the planet. The main focus is on climate and weather, but other broader topics include the energy of water, agriculture and carbon emissions.#

As deputy science team lead for NASA’s Kepler Mission, SJSU Associate Professor Natalie Batalha was at the forefront of today’s confirmation that the mission has discovered its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system. Continue reading →